Our News, Your News
This round of PEN Translates marks – and is marked by – powerful regional and transnational interconnections. We have five Spanish titles speaking compellingly for the linguistic, cultural and social diversity surging from Central and Latin America; new queer writing in French from Algerian and Cameroonian novelists; two highly mobile Vietnamese feminist mysteries; Arabic fiction from an Egyptian writer living in East London and a Black Sudanese writer living in Austria; the intricacies of language from a d/Deaf perspective; the sensory world of food as experienced by Malayan Communists at war; and two stunning celebrations of the art of the short story in Farsi and Kannada. They showcase the continued invention and ambition of independent publishers and translators, and how the most vivacious and essential current writing is both formally inventive and expansively committed to solidarity.
At London's Charing Cross Library on Friday 26th July: an exclusive pre-launch event with Dong Xi, author of the upcoming novel 'Fate Rewritten'. Hosted by Sinoist editor Susan Trapp, a unique opportunity to meet the author and get a sneak peek into his latest work.
By Nicky Harman, June 24, '24
Friday 12th July, 1-2pm UK time (8-9pm Beijing time).
In this session, facilitated by Nicky Harman and Emily Jones from Paper Republic, we'll be discussing the story 'Notes from a Consulting Room' by Sophie Zuo Fei (昨非) and translated by Dylan Levi King and Yun Qin Wang (王韵沁).
You can read the translation of the story in English here: Read Paper Republic: Notes from the Consulting Room and the Chinese version is available here.
We are delighted that the author Sophie Zuo Fei (昨非) and translator Dylan Levi King will be joining us for the session.
The book club takes place online using MS teams and is held in English. You do not need to be able to speak Chinese to attend. All are welcome to attend.
For more information and to register to attend, please register here on Eventbrite to attend. The meeting link will be sent to you about a week before the event (note: the confirmation email after your registration does not contain the meeting link).
We look forward to seeing you there!
The Online Confucius Institute team at The Open University
Email: online-ci@open.ac.uk
By Nicky Harman, June 11, '24
A group of us held an impromptu online translation workshop on 5th June 2024. It came about because there were a fair number of people who submitted fully-translated pieces for the new Read Paper Republic "Home" series. We couldn't choose all of the pieces and decided to offer any whose work had not been chosen the chance to join Nicky Harman and Chen Du for an hour-and-a-half session. It was very informative, with everyone contributing. We discussed specific challenges we had while translating, the business of translation, and where to find additional resources. Jessica Morris's detailed notes follow:
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Event at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London.
Speakers: Cosima Bruno, Lucas Klein and Chris Song. Discussants: Paul Bevan, Wen-chi Li, Mary Mazzilli, Dylan K. Wang.
Free to all, but must register.
"Offering the first systematic overview of modern and contemporary Chinese literature from a translation studies perspective, this handbook provides students, researchers and teachers with a context in which to read and appreciate the effects of linguistic and cultural transfer in Chinese literary works."
By Jack Hargreaves, April 1, '24
And we're back!
I know you're all thinking it, 浪子回头金不换, the prodigal newsletter has returned and there's nothing sweeter. Well I hope that we can deliver with this, the first instalment in a year and a half.
Be warned though, we're not quite back to our regularly scheduled program, since the perversion of the blue bird site and its lovely literary community has meant that news and stories have become harder to come by. Still, we've managed to cobble together a fair amount for you to get excited about and will also be trialing a little something that's new.
But first, the annual, start-of-the-year reminder to any aspiring or experienced Chinese-English translators that registration for both Bristol Translates & BCLT Summer School is currently open. Both are online this time around, and while there is some time before the application window for Bristol closes, you only have until Sunday 14 April to apply for Multilingual Prose, Multilingual Poetry, Multilingual Theatre or Training the Trainer at BCLT, if Chinese is your language of choice. Please do spread the word. And if you yourself are interested, then I highly recommend signing up for either for how valuable an opportunity this is to start building your translation network and toolbox.
Now, onto the news:
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Aimed at practising translators at any stage of their career and at language enthusiasts who want to explore the world of literary translation, Bristol Translates offers the opportunity to work with leading professional translators to translate texts across different literary genres.
This year's Chinese-English strand will be tutored by Nicky Harman. The English-Chinese strand will be tutored by Yan Ying.
Multi-award-winning Chinese novelist Lu Min talks with Angus Phillips about her newly translated novel Dinner for Six and about her life and writing career.
Contemporary China Through Literature: Characters and Translation
This event, jointly hosted by the Leeds Business Confucius Institute and the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing will combine a presentation by multi-award-winning Chinese novelist Lu Min 鲁敏, with an interactive two-way translation workshop, facilitated by world-leading translators from Chinese into English and English into Chinese, alongside the author herself.
By Eric Abrahamsen, December 22, '23
A refuge, a recollection, a promised land, a prison; the arms of family, or four concrete walls in the sky... Home means something different to each of us, but it means something to all of us. For our next Read Paper Republic series, we're looking for stories of home: of the quest to find one; the struggle to escape one; the battle to defend one. Fiction, non-fiction or poetry: it's all welcome.
If you are a Chinese>English translator and know of a home-related short story, essay or poems which you really like, we want to hear from you! This publication aims to support emerging translators (translators who haven't published more than one book) and we particularly welcome entries from those new to the profession.
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By Eric Abrahamsen, December 15, '23
Here it is, the 2023 Roll Call of Chinese literature published in
English translation!
First the good news: this is an interesting and varied collection of
titles, including classics, left-fielders, big names, and small(er)
names. The non-fiction in particular is a wonderful spread of current
events, political topics, and essays.
The slightly less wonderful news is that there's simply less of it!
After several years of steadily-increasing numbers, the shelf shrank a
bit this year. Of course it's impossible to know precisely why, but we
will note that so much direct cultural contact between China and
English-speaking countries has dried up since the pandemic: book fairs
canceled, funding dried up, plane tickets expensive.
There also continues to be a marked gender imbalance: only two female
poets in the poetry section; in fiction only 6 women to 16 men.
Regardless, these are great offerings. Special shout-outs to Owlish,
which seems to be attracting the genuine love and enthusiasm that we
all wish for our books; Jeremy Tiang, who is showing up on so many
literary prize lists; and the Sinoist publishing house, which accounts
for more than a quarter of the books on the fiction list.
And you're still in time for Christmas shopping!
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China’s crackdown on fantasy literature and video games poses a critical obstacle to readers, authors, and those who seek to make these works accessible. Why restrict these apparently innocuous stories? Eric R Stone interviews censored writers who describe how censorship and outright banning of certain concepts, words, and allusions render works of fiction unintelligible.
While the Paper Republic newsletter is on hiatus, why not check out this first of my columns for the China Books Review, on my recommendations for the latest fiction translated from the Chinese language (whatever that is).
My Cat Hates Me by Bai Cha, translated by Jemma Stafford (Brown Books Publishing Group, 2022, ISBN 978-1-61254-584-4) won the Gold Prize in the Graphic Novel section of the 2023 Benjamin Franklin IPBA Awards!
Translated by Jeremy Tiang and Eric Abrahamsen, Xu Zechen’s Beijing Sprawl introduces us to a ragtag quartet of would-be social climbers. The high cost of urban living, accompanied by thundering tedium and punctuated with shocking violence, proves to be a devilishly swirling drain from which there can be no escape in Xu’s interconnected fictions.
As an author, I write certain things that likewise seep into my heart, and there’s no way to get them out. I need to live with them. This is how I see the connection between people and their work: as wood shavings that find a place in your heart without your realizing it, and which affect not only you but also those who come after you.
There are two weeks left before the deadline for early-bird applications for Bristol Translates, a virtual summer school aimed at practising translators at any stage of their career and at language enthusiasts who want to explore the world of literary translation. Bristol Translates offers the opportunity to work with leading professional translators to translate texts across the literary genres into English.
The overall deadline is in June.
For Chinese, Nicky Harman and Jack Hargreaves will be leading the workshops, which will be supplemented with a rich programme of talks and activities.
See you there!
“The uniqueness of Chang’s writing lies in its fusion of literary aesthetics and narrative styles from the East and the West: his portrayal of the plantations in Borneo reads like a transplant of Faulkner’s American South to the Indonesia Archipelago, and his stream of consciousness style narrative traversing between the character’s psychic and the tropical rainforest terrain inject Chinese literature with a unique sensorial experience similar to that of Gabriel García Márquez’s magical realism. In a sense, it is not at all far-fetched to claim that Chang’s writing can be read as a unique branch of Chinese literature as world literature.”
– E.K. Tan (Stony Brook University), Chang Kuei-hsing's nominator
Hospital starts off with a fairly straightforward, plot-driven narrative: Yang Wei goes on a business trip to C City, drinks a bottle of complementary mineral water in his hotel room, is almost immediately struck down with unbearable stomach pain, and after passing out for three days, is taken to a local hospital by several members of the hotel staff. And then things gradually start to get strange…flourishes of the uncanny begin to appear and the reader is quickly transported further and further away from the book’s early realist setting into a strange, dark, and increasingly unsettling universe.
By Jack Hargreaves, December 20, '22
Paper Republic is planning a new READ PAPER REPUBLIC, our online publication featuring short fiction (to see previous editions, click here). This edition is focused on the delicious theme of food.
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Very sad news.
Illustrated in a composite style of simple comics and classic Chinese art, My Cat Hates Me follows the daily exploits of a petulant "purr-sonality", his canine sidekick, and their long-suffering artist owner. Bestselling author Bai Cha has drawn millions of fans to his comic series "Cat and Dog." Now, the first installment of My Cat Hates Me makes its long-anticipated U.S. debut. Translated by Jemma Stafford. 白茶:《就喜欢你看不惯我又干不掉我的样子》
By Nicky Harman, December 18, '22
Welcome to the 2022 list of literary works translated from Chinese into English. There is the usual eclectic mix listed below – from scifi to crime, to all other types of good and readable fiction. We have included poetry too, and children’s and young adult fiction. If anyone has any entries to add, please let us know at info@paper-republic.org and we’ll add them. Similarly with star reviews and other newsy items. Enjoy browsing!
Let us also take the chance to remind you that Paper Republic is a UK-registered charity (non-profit). We are run by volunteers and depend on your donations. Everything you give us goes towards our mission, to promote Chinese literature in translation. Please consider donating here: Paper Republic donations link
See also the
Benevity.org charitable portal.
If your employer gives matching funds for donations, Benevity is a great chance
to amplify your generosity.
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Acclaimed author Paul French rounds up this year's best fiction in translation from China, and reveals 2 coming up in 2023 you should get ready for
One is brand-new: Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk, translated by Eileen J Cheng, edited by Theodore Huters, Harvard University Press (September 2022).
The other is recent: Weeds, translated by Matt Turner. Seaweed Salad Editions (2019)
Dinner for Six by Lu Min, tr. Nicky Harman and Helen Wang (Balestier Press, Nov 2022)
Under the stench of factory skies, two single parents and their four teenaged children gather together for Saturday dinners. But can widowed accountant Su Qin ever publicly acknowledge her socially-mismatched relationship with Ding Bogang, a laid-off manual worker? Can she bear to see her ambitious and studious daughter form a romantic connection with his son? Can her obese son create the perfect family he craves? Will Ding Bogang’s silly married daughter ever get pregnant?
In a story about growing up and the complications of family life, two generations of lonely individuals come together against the odds, learning to love as they traverse the long and arduous journey of life.
Wong May represents a middle ground between Pound, with his barely intelligible Chinese, and sinologists with their near-pedantic veracity. As a bilingual poet who can harness her own experience of diaspora and the long afterlives of war and displacement, she offers a lived intimacy that one hopes will become increasingly prevalent in the field of translation. “Poetry lives in the present—though it happened in Tang China,” she writes. “I do not mean the poem should read like it has just been translated, but like it has just been written.”
By Nicky Harman, October 15, '22
The first session of the book club, held last week, was a great success. 70 + participants from all over the world discussed Yan Ge's short story Sissy Zhong, translated by Nicky Harman, with great enthusiasm. Book here for the second session on 18 November. We will be discussing an essay from Sanmao's Tales of the Sahara, and are delighted that the translator, Mike Fu, will join us from Tokyo. Registration is free.
By Jack Hargreaves, October 10, '22
Hello, hello, a happy autumn to one and all! (It's my favourite season, can you tell?)
It's been a while since the last instalment of this here newsletter came out, and a lot has happened between those heady dog days of August and now, some of which you might have missed. So wherever there are recordings of events I've included them below. And of course, if there's something that has happened in the world of Chinese lit over the past few months that isn't below, please do send in the article or link and I'll pop it in the list [website only].
The reason for this is, though you might have been waiting eagerly chewing at the bit for this issue to come out, it is nevertheless going to be the last one for a short while. Probably until early next year, in fact. We enjoy running the newsletter and putting it together, and there has been some lovely feedback about it as a resource, for which we thank you, but we need to rethink how to make it more readily sustainable and maintainable for those of us behind the scenes. In the meantime, a period of rest is in order (instead of a period of procrastination, which is what the last three months have been). We hope you'll stick around and stay subscribed for when the new issue drops into your inboxes come January or February, and if it happens that any of you have any interest in being part of running a newsletter for Chinese literature in translation on a voluntary basis, then be sure to get in touch. The same goes for if you have or know of any news that you think would fit the newsletter, now or anytime in the future; you can always email news AT paper-republic DOT org with anything Chinese-lit-related that you think worth sharing. If it's urgent, and waiting until the next issue would mean missing out, we'll post it straight onto the website and socials (Facebook, WeChat and Twitter for the time being).
Anyway, this issue is review- and release-heavy. So go wonder at all the shiny new books you can spend your hard-earned cash on just in time for Christmas. Oh, and any aspiring or emerging (budding, fledgling, nascent) translators out there with a short piece of fiction or non-fiction about food which you think needs translating or you have lying about in a drawer ready-translated, keep those hungry eyes peeled for a call for submissions in the not-so-distant future.
Happy holidays y'all. Here's to a smashing end of the year (we can dream, eh!).
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By Jack Hargreaves, August 3, '22
Hey everyone! We're jumping right into the news in this instalment, since it's a little overdue. Do keep your eyes peeled on the Paper Republic website for a new Read Paper Republic series in the very, very near future. This one is guest-edited and includes some of our favourite Chinese poets and translators.
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